help please! maternity clothes or even better 'normal' clothes that would work as maternity wear

[shelley72]

i am 13/14 wks pregnant now and beginning to get a little bump. the clothes that i wore in previous pgs no longer fit (gone from sz 20 pre DC1 to 14 pre DC2 to 10 now) and i need something to get me through the next few months until the spring. what with the body changes i am again feeling fat and frumpy which i am finding quite hard .

this is my last pg and so am loathe to spend loads (money is tight anyway) on maternity clothes that i will never wear again - have bought isabella oliver stuff in the past, but i was working then and had more money and more opportunity to wear smarter things. i am now a SAHM and so spend day on school run, running about at toddler groups / library time etc. i have sold my old stuff on ebay but didnt make that much to buy more with.

so are there any suggestions as to what types of things i could try and where to shop? i like dresses as they are easy to do. casual stuff like fat face, some white stuff, boden, joules as long as its not too pattern-y! not so good at putting tops with things, though i do wear jeans a lot. shapewise, i am 5'7 with quite wide shoulders / hips. used to go in a bit at the middle but realise thats going to change!

thanks for your help .

Around that stage I lived in leggings and tunics / empire line dresses as I found maternity jeans were still too big, but my own clothes were too tight! I just went to matalan and primark, and sized up in them. It was nice after having DS to have some non maternity clothes to wear as well while I was still losing weight so I definitely got a fair bit of wear out of them :)

The 'shelter' charity shop has regular donations from jojo maman bebe. It's all new, unworn stuff. I don't know if it is their way of doing their bit or if they are 2nds or end of the line or what. I bought some stuff and it was perfect.

Congratulations by the way.

I have bought a lot of maternity stuff this time from Matalan through the online shop. It's really cheap and nice for the price. They do 'proper' maternity wear as well as normal stuff.

I also bought a few things from Asda and 2 pairs of jeggings in the sale from Dorothy Perkins. I've mostly been wearing leggings and stretchy fitted tunic tops with long boots.

The JoJo Maman Bebe sale has some good bits in at the moment. I got a skirt for £5 and a few jumpers for under £20.

Jeggings are also good. I wouldn't even contemplate the, when not pg, but have a couple of Primark pairs which are denim but have an elastic waistband that I am still wearing at almost 30 weeks.

To be honest there are so many tunics and smocks etc around at the moment it's quite easy not to buy maternity wear, but remember you will need some stuff for post birth as well so might be worth buying some stuff you can wear on the way back down too.

thanks for the suggestions. i have had a look and can you believe we have NO shelter charity shops in our area which is a real shame, as that sounded promising. i will look in the jojo sale though, never think of that shop for maternity wear, just baby things.

i did try on some tunics in white stuff just before christmas, but they were very billowy and make me look very pregnant indeed. i know i will grow into them eventually and that was before i had had my scan so didnt want to tempt fate.

im wondering where i can get some skinny-ish jeans from to wear under those tops? i look frightful in leggings. are the primark jeggings like jeans? have never looked at jeggings before!

I think jeggings are more flattering than leggings - the ones I've got are stretchy with a stretch waistband like leggings, but they look a bit like dark denim and have seams and pockets like jeans - a bit like a skinny jeans crossed with leggings combo!

Quite a few places do maternity skinny jeans - there's a big sale on at Mamas & Papas at the moment and they have lots of maternity jeans on there. I've not tried them though. They don't seem to have the Dorothy Perkins ones that I bought any more.

i bought my maternity jeans on ebay. all a real bagain. worth having a look?

The viscose/jersey things in store fit quite well still (i'm 37 weeks!). Great plains has some dresses which I can still get into and would have worked well in the first and second trimester.

I second DP for their maternity skinny jeans, they are very soft and stretchy and come in nice colours eg teal and plum. I saw them in store months ago, and managed to fit into the non maternity ones at around 5-6 months (in a bigger size).

The Primark jeggings I have are denim and the same as jeans except that they have a fake fly and an elastic acted waistband. They aren't perfect and do bag by the end of the day, but then I am also yet to find a pair of maternity jeans that don't either.